November 23, 2009

Today's subject is friends. Not the TV show but true friends.

Friendship is a beautiful thing. No matter how much money one has that's one thing that can not be bought.

Anybody who has a lot of money and is surrounded with "friends" is kidding himself. They are not friends. They just hang around for the benefits, for the fallout.

It can be noticed that beautiful girls always have kind of ugly girlfriends. And the reason is twofold. The beautiful girls don't have to be jealous of the ugly girls and, the ugly girls are waiting for the fallout or the leftover benefits. These are not real friends by any means.

As I mentioned earlier I came to this country when I was almost 21 years old. Back in the "Old Country" I had a lot of friends. Guys I went to school with, guys whom I grew up with, guys I hung around with year after year. We were a close bunch. We knew and cared about each other. We knew each other's family, our parents were well acquainted.

I left Hungary with one of my friends. We were almost like brothers. We went to the same school, we grew up together. The fact that we were some kind of cousins were secondary because friendship came first. When we got to the US our lives took different paths. I stayed in New York while he went far, far away (to Pennsylvania). But we stayed in touch throughout the years.

I was at his wedding, he was at my wedding. We stayed close friends regardless of the distance. We speak frequently, unfortunately we don't see each other as much as we would like to. When we talk on the phone we talk for an hour, like two old ladies.

In 2000 we went to Hungary, just the two of us, to retrace our youth. The two weeks we spent there were fantastic. We also ate a lot there without spousal supervision!

This kind of friendship is missing here. I have good friends whom I know for over 40 years but none going back to my childhood. For that one has to be born here. That's one of the curse of being an emigrant.

The following is a funny story.

I had a very good friend in Hungary as far back as elementary school. We were very close. We lived close to each other and spent a lot of time together. Our ways separated in the 1950s. When 1956 happened he went to England while I came to the US. Never kept in touch.

About 30 years ago one night our phone rings and it was this friend. He was in New York with his wife and he said we should meet. Naturally, I was very excited about seeing him after all these years. We agreed to meet in the lobby of the Waldorf Astoria, by the big clock.

Well, we were there on time and were looking. I realized I had no clue what he would look like. It turned out neither had he about me. After all the people who were supposed to meet their parties met and left there were only one other couple who stayed. We were eying each other very apprehensively.

Eventually we asked each other and realized we were the bosom buddies who were inseparable years ago . After that we had a great time. Since then we are keeping in touch and met several times with no trouble recognizing each other.

Friendship is a commodity that is priceless. Its something anyone can invest in and with time and care it will provide great returns.